I stand there not saying a word as I listen to Gwen making plans and arrangements for me, laughing and joking with June about how I’m finally finished being pig headed. I’d scoff at her, but she’s right. I’ve been an asshole. I’ve made so many mistakes that I don’t even know where to begin making amends. Thank God I have Gwen.

I’ll do whatever she tells me because I want this to work. It has to work. I can’t go on living like this anymore.

“Pack your bags, Brother. You’re going on tour,” Gwen tells me with a huge smile a few minutes later as she hangs up the phone.

Chapter 26

It’s been three months, three weeks, and six days since my world turned upside down. I don’t remember much of my time in the basement of Hummingbird Records, and I guess that’s a good thing for now. The doctors and my shrink have all told me that it’s my brain’s way of trying to protect me and that, in time, I will most likely start to slowly remember everything when I’m ready. From the bits and pieces I do remember, and what I’ve been told by the police, the lawyers, the media, and my entire management team, I know enough to keep me wide awake most nights.

When I woke up in the hospital two days after Hummingbird Records burned to the ground, I had a concussion, a fractured cheek bone, a dislocated shoulder, a small fracture in my clavicle, bleeding in the muscle tissue of my thigh from the kick I sustained, and a depressed skull fracture. Due to my blood disorder, that skull fracture quickly turned into bleeding on my brain that required emergency surgery. I woke up to a room full of people: my band, my agent, my lawyer, and June; I had never felt more alone in my life. My eyes searched the room for the one person I had hoped would be there, but I never found him. Later that night while I lay in bed thinking about everything I’d lost, June quietly walked in the room, climbed into bed with me, and held me while I cried. Everything changed that day. My heart was broken by each and every person in my life, and I wasn't sure if it would ever fully heal.

For a few short hours, I had a brother. A brother who I always thought of as my best friend, the one person I trusted and thought I could always lean on. He let jealousy and hatred cloud his judgment and allowed a man obsessed with revenge to corrupt him even further. In the end, from what I've been told, he tried to make up for his sins by killing the man who hurt me and then taking his own life right next to me. I'm thankful that is part of that day I can’t remember. I don’t know if I ever want that memory to surface. He turned on me and tainted every good memory I ever had of him, and that’s not something I can ever forget. But he was still my friend. He was still my brother, and he died trying to make amends with me.

Apparently, my mother had admitted to hiring Billy to tamper with the brakes on my father’s car. She claims my father was the love of her life, and she’s regretted the decision every single day since then, but who knows. Just like her son, she was filled with jealousy. She knew my father never really loved her. She was never the love of his life. That role belonged to June. Something that still amazes me when I think about it, but deep down I think I always knew. My father and June were high school and college sweethearts. After graduation, June went on a backpacking trip across Europe. Time and distance got the better of them and they broke up. A few years later, my father started Hummingbird Records and met my mother. Not long into their relationship, June came back to town and opened up The Red Door Saloon, and my father found it impossible to stay away from her. Right when he was getting ready to break it off with my mother and spend the rest of his life loving June, my mother told him she was pregnant with me.

She had always known about June, always known my father’s heart belonged to someone else, and after a while she just couldn’t take it anymore. She wanted him out of her life, but she didn’t want to lose the money and social status, so she hired Billy, her one-time lover.

Under Tennessee law, her actions would have gotten her charged with solicitation of first degree murder, which is a class B felony and punishable by no less than eight and no more than thirty years in prison. Fortunately for her, the statute of limitations for class B felonies in Tennessee is eight years. She was one year past the expiration date when she confessed, so she never went to prison. I haven’t spoken to her once since I got out of the hospital. She had called when I was still out of it and spoke to one of the nurses to check on me, but I’m sure it was only for show. She may have admitted to all her wrong-doings, and she may have apologized, but deep down, she’ll always be the same cold, calculating person she’s always been. I don’t care how much she tries to make it up to me, I will never forgive her for taking my father away from me.

I never really had a mother, just someone who was in my life that took on the name but never the role. I've always looked at June as a second mother, and who knows, maybe in another life, she could have been my real mother. She has always loved me, always looked out for me, and she loved my father. I couldn’t really ask for anything else. She’s been by my side through every step of my recovery, and she’s been helping me heal my head and my heart one day at a time.

I haven’t seen Brady since the day he told me I was just a job and pushed me away. I have a few wonderful memories of him telling me he loved me, but I have no idea if those memories are real or just part of my brain mixing things up from that day. June told me during one of my many crying fits over the last couple of months that he was out of his mind with worry trying to find me that day. She told me he stayed by my bedside until I went into surgery, and Gwen and his friend Austin had to forcibly remove him from the hospital because he put up such a fight about leaving. None of that makes any sense though. Aside from the letter that came in the mail a few days after I got out of the hospital, I haven’t heard a word from him. If he was so broken up about what happened to me, why wasn’t he there? Why didn’t he stay?

I push thoughts of Brady from my mind and try to concentrate on what I’m about to do. Thinking about the man who is still taking up residence in my heart will make me want to curl up in the corner and cry, and that wouldn’t be good. I’m here to say goodbye to one chapter of my life and hello to a new one.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, trying to calm the butterflies fluttering around in my stomach. I’m nervous, but it’s a good kind of nervous. The kind that excites me and makes me want to push through it until I come out on the other side, proud of myself and what I’ve accomplished. Pulling the note from my father out of my back pocket, I read through it for the hundredth time without any tears for once. I smile as I fold it back up and stick it inside the sound hole of my nineteen-sixty Gibson Hummingbird guitar and tighten the strap that holds the instrument around my neck.

Tonight is the first stop of my farewell tour. It's not a long tour, just a small handful of cities. I don’t have the energy to travel the globe, and thankfully, after what I’ve been through, my fans have understood.

I’m beginning this tour of saying goodbye at the place that started it all: The Red Door Saloon. For the first time in my life, I’m doing things my way, singing the songs I want to sing and playing the music I want to play. I’m taking my father’s advice and letting the music take me where I want to go. I want to be a songwriter, not a performer. I don’t have the heart for performing anymore.

June did a few renovations in the last few months, and the bar finally has an actual stage instead of just a platform in the corner. Now there’s room for a guitar player, a piano, a set of drums, and a singer, and I couldn’t be happier to be christening the stage for her tonight.

Standing off to the side of the stage behind the curtain, I watch as June walks to the middle of the stage and taps the microphone a few times.

“Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for Nashville’s very own, Layla Carlysle!”

The small crowd of around two hundred and fifty people, the most The Red Door Saloon has ever seen in its lifetime, all stand up from their seats, clapping, shouting, and whistling as I take a deep breath and walk out on stage.

I take a few moments to thank everyone for coming and introduce them to my band before adjusting the guitar around my neck and strumming a few chords to warm my fingers up.

My arm and shoulder are still a little sore, and my physical therapist advised waiting another week before starting the tour, but I can’t do that. It’s now or never. If I want to truly heal, this is something that I have to do, right now, before each day that I’m away from Brady makes me forget what it is I’m fighting for and why I’m happy to be alive.

I open my set with one of the first songs I ever wrote when I was a child, back when I had my whole life ahead of me and nothing to fear but the unknown. It’s a song about growing up and moving on and not being afraid. I sing with my heart and I can tell that the crowd senses the difference. They clap along with the rhythm of the drums, and they sway to the beat of the music. I’m not just going through the motions performing like a robot. I’m performing like I love it. And I do.

I sing eight original songs tonight and I mix in a few covers to get the crowd up on their feet and singing along with me. I smile easily and talk to the fans happily in between songs, but even though there’s a feeling of freedom and peacefulness that flows through me tonight, there’s still something missing. There’s still someone who isn’t here that should be. My heart is full of pride in myself and love for what I’m doing, but there’s a huge chunk that remains empty: a piece of myself that has broken off and lives in someone else now, someone who saved me but then walked away.

“This last song is something I wrote not too long ago. It’s called Your Breath on Me,” I tell the crowd with a smile as they whistle and cheer some more, and I place my hands where they need to go on the frets. Maybe singing this song isn’t the best choice to close with since it cuts my heart open all over again, not the brightest idea when I’m trying to heal, but I’m pushing through and I’m doing it. I’m not going to let my fears control me anymore.

I close my eyes and begin the song, singing from the heart and pushing my voice as far as it will go, hoping just like I have every time I’ve practiced it the last few weeks that maybe he’ll hear me.

When you’re wrapped around me,

my soul feels alive.

Maybe this is a fairytale,

and not meant for my life.

I need you to hold me in your arms,

and chase my fears away.

Your breath on me

makes me sigh your name out loud,

gives me warmth when I feel cold

Your breath on me

makes me ache to touch your skin

gives me strength to live again.

When the morning sun comes in,

I’m not afraid of what the day will bring.

Your fingertips that touch my face,

and your eyes that know the truth,

show me that I’ll be okay,

as long as I have you.

Your breath on me

makes me sigh your name out loud,

gives me warmth when I feel cold

Your breath on me

makes me ache to touch your skin

gives me strength to live again.

This dream of mine has finally come true.

I’m living every day just how I intended to.

But there is something missing, and I just can’t let it go,

that piece of the puzzle, that I need to feel whole.

Your breath on me

makes me sigh your name out loud,

gives me warmth when I feel cold

Your breath on me

makes me ache to touch your skin

gives me strength to live again.

Gives me strength to live…

Gives me strength to live…

without you.

I slowly open my eyes when I hear the roar of the crowd, and I smile despite the ache in my heart that singing this song always brings. I take a small bow and clear the emotion from my throat so I can push the man this song is about from my mind and accept the crowd’s praise without breaking down.

An hour later, after the bar has closed and everyone has gone home, I sit alone on the stage with my legs hanging down off of the edge. The only lights on in the place are the ones directly above me; the rest of the bar is swathed in darkness, and I can barely make out the tables and chairs that fill it. I quietly strum my guitar and hum softly to myself, thinking about all the ways my life has changed in the last few months.

“Hey, Layla. The band is all packed up and ready to leave when you are.”

My hand stills on the guitar and I turn to face Dylan, my new bodyguard as of two months ago. He’s twenty-eight years old and probably could have made more money as a male model than a bodyguard, but he loves his job and he’s good at it. He came highly recommended to my management team. I have a feeling Brady was the one who suggested him. When I questioned Dylan about it, he explained it was better if I didn’t know. I ignored the feelings of disappointment knowing Brady would rather send someone he knows to keep me safe instead of doing it himself. Dylan has stuck to me like glue since his first day, even though in the beginning I was a total bitch to him because he wasn’t Brady. He’s extremely professional and does everything by the book, but every once in a while he’ll let his guard down and show me a fun, playful side of himself that puts me at ease.

“Thanks, Dylan. I’m just going to enjoy the peace and quiet for a few more minutes before I have to get on the bus with a bunch of rowdy boys,” I tell him with a smile as I move the guitar off of my lap and set it down on the stage next to me.

Dylan crouches down next to me and searches my face for any signs that I’m not okay. He knows better than to come right out and ask me anymore after the last time he did it and I told him I would shove my foot up his ass if I heard that question from one more person.